


The Sergeant's Prologue and Tale

by MrProphet



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-22 23:32:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10707438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	The Sergeant's Prologue and Tale

“This is a bad idea,” Mal declared.

“Yes, Sir,” Zoë agreed.

Mal shook his head. “If we both think it’s a bad idea then what are we doing on this shiong mao niao transport?”

Zoë turned to look at him. “Because it was  _your_  idea, Sir. You spent a week-and-a-half talking me into this. ‘See the old place again’, you said. ‘Take a tour of our own personal hell and maybe lay a few ghosts to rest,’ you said.”

“Now, honestly,” Mal said. “Does that sound like something I’d say?”

“Well I did think that it seemed a little out of character at the time,” Zoë admitted, “but you were getting an itch, sir. I’m told it’s quite common in old soldiers.”

“Did you just call me old?”

“As old as I am and then a little,” Zoë reminded him. “Captain; this is the thirtieth anniversary of the defining moment of our adult lives. I’d say that makes us old, more or less by definition.”

Mal responded with a silence that stretched on for several minutes. It was broken when another man made his way across the transport’s passenger deck towards them.

“Excuse me,” he said. His voice was rough and countrified; a rural accent from one of the inner agricultural colonies. “I couldn’t help overhearing some mention of an anniversary. Now, most of the people on this boat are just going to Hera for the fishing, but would you be going back to… the valley?”

“To Serenity?” Mal asked. “Yeah; we’re going back to Serenity.”

The man nodded. “Me too. My oldest figured it was time; thought it might stop me waking up nights over it.”

“I know that feeling,” Zoë replied.

“You get nightmares?” Mal asked.

“Not lately, but once.” 

“You never told me that.”

“You never told me about the night sweats, sir.”

“Well no, but… Hey! I  _never told you about the night sweats_.”

“No, sir,” Zoë agreed, “but I make a point of checking your medical records once a year.”

The other man smiled thinly. “He your officer, then?”

“Near as.” Zoë glanced fondly at Mal. “He was my sergeant in he war, but he never had no more brains than an officer.”

“But you called him ‘Captain’. You have a ship?”

Mal raised an eyebrow. “Oh; this one’s clever. So, were you with the main assault or on the deep-flank with Wilkins?”  
“Sir?”

“Wasn’t just one side at Serenity Valley,” Mal reminded her. “Figure if it were then a mite fewer people would’ve died there. Course, you never can be sure; I been on a few picnics got pretty rough…”

“Is that true?” Zoë asked accusingly. “Are you Alliance?”

The man shrugged. “I was. I suppose I still am, in my way. Pader Berren, formerly a Sergeant with the Ninth Starborne Infantry.”

Mal thought for a moment. “The Ninth Starborne? That was a rifle regiment on the front line; reckon we shared a few exchanges of fire at some point in the proceedings.”

“And you were with who?” Pader asked.

“57th Overlanders,” Zoë replied.

“And the Eighth Mecha,” Mal added. “Or rather they were with us; after week three, that is. And then a week later we picked up…”

“Don’t labour the point, Sir,” Zoë suggested. “Point is,” she added, addressing Pader, ”we lost a lot of good friends there. Chances are we don’t much care to share those memories with the man whose hand did the killing.”

Pader shrugged. “If that’s how you feel, I’ll respect it, but I came here to try to bury the past alongside the friends I lost. And for the record” – he rolled up his right sleeve to reveal a shining expanse of cybernetic arm – “the hand that pulled the trigger at Serenity stayed there. “When they called ceasefire I started organising my platoon to burial duty,” he went on, “just to keep us sane and give us something to do. By day three we’d stopped picking out our own troops from the Independents; we’d stopped being able to tell the difference. Medics on both sides started doing the same. It was a Browncoat doc who cut this arm off when it started getting gangrenous.”

“Well, my heart surely does bleed,” Mal said in a soft, low voice. 

Zoë looked at him in surprise. For the first time in years, she found that she could not read his emotions. “Sir…”

“I’ll keep my distance then,” Pader said. “It’s just… don’t be thinking as how I was the winner on that field.”

Mal shook his head. “No chance of that, Sergeant,” he assured Pader. “We know well enough there weren’t no winners at Serenity. Not on the dirt, anyhow. So why not just pull up a seat and join us.”

“Sir?”

“Ain’t that the point? Heal old wounds.”

“I thank you, Sergeant…”

“Reynolds; Malcolm Reynolds. This here’s Zoë Washburne.”

“Glad to know you.”

“Likewise.”

“You know,” Mal said, “that what you were just saying; about laying Browncoats and Purplebellies in the same ground; that got me to thinking of a story I… heard during the war.”

“Sir?” Zoe’s confusion was increasing.

“Just bear with me, Zoë,” Mal said. “See, it seems there were these three Independent soldiers making their way through Alliance country on Brightspur, during the ground campaign. They ran foul of an Alliance patrol who could see at once that there were a number of very doubtful things about this group.

“First off, only two of them was armed, a lieutenant and a corporal. Second, the other man, a regular trooper, turned out to be all up in chains. Third, when they found out they was surrounded, the lieutenant put his gun to the trooper’s head and tried to shoot him. Leader of the patrol put a bullet in his chest. The corporal took a bullet in the leg and the trooper was smart enough not to run.

“So these two surviving soldiers find their way into the Alliance stockade, the one with his wrists still in manacles and the other with a rough bandage on his leg and a crazy-making fever running through his veins. For a couple of days they stay there, watching the guards pace up and down or groaning in a most piteous fashion, each to his own. And after a couple of days, the one who wasn’t doing the moaning got to knowing his guards pretty well and decided one of them in particular who had a certain look about him.

“’So, you don’t look like the usual up-and-at-‘em Alliance type,’ he says. ‘You got a scruffy look to you that don’t sit right in that uniform.’

“And the guard scowls at him and says: ‘Well, you ain’t got the fire-eyed crazy look we see in most Browncoats, either. Not like your friend.”

“He ain’t my friend,” the trooper says. “He’s my jailor. I was on an advance patrol and when I opted out they caught me. The commander got me on a charge of desertion and sent me back to the main camp with those two upright citizens as guard of honour. Best day of my life when your lot showed up.’

“The guard yawned. ‘And you felt you needed to share this with me because…?’

“’The reason I opted out was that we got hold of one of _your_ deserters. He was hurt pretty bad, but before he died he told us that he’d swiped an Independent payroll trunk that his platoon captured. He took it off and buried it in a field, meaning to lie low and go back for it when the war was over.’

“’Only you caught him first?’ The guard’s hooked now. ‘So what happened to the money?’

“’Buried still, and  _I_  know where.’ The trooper leans up to the bars and whispers: ‘You get me out of here and we can split the money. Ten thousand platinum. Each.’

“’Each?’

“’Only one problem,’ he adds. ‘We got to take him with us.’ He nodded at the corporal.

“’Why?’

“’Well, he was on guard duty with me when the Purplebelly was dying. The soldier told me where to find the treasure, but then he got to coughing so bad I had to get him some water. When I got back he was dead and never told me where to dig. Well, I figure I’ll set out and try to find it by trial and error, but turns out he only went and told the lot to the corporal, who’d had his eye on me ever since.’

“’Bad luck,’ the guard laughed.

“’Bad luck then, but good luck now. If we can get him away from here, I can take us to the right field and he knows where to dig. Trust me, I can get that out of him.’

“’And we split it… three ways?’

“The trooper looked shocked. ‘An upright, idealistic man like the corporal would be offended if we offered him a cut. I wouldn’t do that to him, so let’s say two ways.’

“’And the corporal?’

“’When we have the money, we… get rid of him. What do you say?’

“Well, the trooper had picked his man well, so the next night the guard opened the cell and stole a mule. The two of them carried the corporal out past the stockade wire to the mule, loaded him into the back and drove away into the night.

“A day and a half later they came to the farm where the treasure was buried. The farmhouse was empty so they holed up there to get the information out of the corporal. He was coming out of that fever right about then, and they found him surprisingly cooperative.

“’The cash box?’ he asked. ‘Oh, yeah; I do recall something about a cash box. Buried under a big, black rock, the man said.’

“And so the guard and the trooper went out of the farmhouse and found a big, black rock, lying in the field. They fetched out spades and picks and turned that rock over, then they dug underneath it; dug deep down into the earth and found… nothing. And that made them so mad.

“They came back to the farmhouse and found the corporal sitting up in bed.

“’You lied to us!’ the trooper accused. ‘There’s nothing under that rock!’

“’What rock?’ the corporal asks. ‘Oh, yeah; I remembered something else. That prisoner, he said; he said under the hollow tree beside the big, black rock. Sorry ‘bout that. Didn’t mean to cause you trouble by it.’

“Well, they weren’t happy ‘bout that, but the next day they went out to the rock and, sure ‘nough, they find a hollow tree lying there. So they roll they big ol’ tree over and dig underneath it until there’s a hole in the black earth, bigger’n the last one, but still no sign of the box.

“And they go back in a steaming mood to find the corporal making soup. And they yell and shout, but he says, calm as you like: ‘You dug under the fallen tree? Not the fallen tree; the big, hollow tree what’s still standing near the big, black rock; that’s what the man said. Soup?’

“So the next day, with a head full of fury, they go out and they find a hollow tree still standing, ‘though it’s not that near to the rock. And they dig under that tree until a swarm of the biggest bees you ever did see come pouring out of a hole in the roots, stinging and buzzing and chasing them all over the field.

“At last they came back to the farmhouse, tired and stung and angry.

“’I’m going to kill that hwun dan corporal!’ the guard declared, but the corporal was nowhere to be seen.

“With an roar like a crazy pig, the guard charged into the kitchen and the corporal hit him in the face with a pan. The guard goes down like a sack of potatoes and the corporal gets his gun. Now, point of fact that’s the only gun in the whole place, ‘cause the guard wasn’t dumb enough to give the trooper one when he’d done his bit of the job already.

“Well, the boot was on the other foot now and no mistake. The corporal made the guard and the trooper fetch their shovels and dig under the step, and no more’n a foot down they found the box.

“’Alright then,’ the corporal says. ‘You all just put that box on the back of the mule and I’ll be out of your way.’

“’You can’t take it all!’ the trooper complained. ‘What about our cut?’

“’Your cut? No-one gets a cut; this is going back where it belongs, and you can thank your lucky stars I don’t kill you as dead as you planned to kill me.’

“’Kill you?’ the trooper managed to sound offended. ‘The thought never…’

“The corporal shot him dead then turned the gun on the guard. ‘Now I don’t much like people planning on killing me and I don’t much like people stealing from my cause, but what really gets my jan-doh duh ee-kwai-ro is when folks start telling me lies, so I suggest you strap that crate down and keep your mouth shut.’

“And the guard did that, so the corporal mounted up on that mule and drove on out of there and back home to base camp with the payroll. They made him a sergeant for that.”

Pader nodded slowly. “So tell me, Sergeant Reynolds; is there a moral to this story.”

Mal looked out of the window as the transport eased into Hera’s main harbour. “Guess what I’m saying is that there’s bastards on every side and ain’t one of ‘em better than any other ‘cause of the coat he wears.”

“And there are good people on both sides?” Zoë hazarded.

Mal shrugged. “Not sure as I’d go that far,” he admitted, “but it’s been a pleasure to know you, Sergeant Pader.”

As Mal and Zoë drove away from the harbour, towards Serenity Valley, she gave him a quizzical look.

“Sir; may I ask a question?”

“Of course you may ask,” Mal replied. “I always encourage a spirit of lively inquiry among my crew, so long as it doesn’t extend to questioning my orders, competence or masculinity.”

“Well then, sir; was there a single shred of truth in that story?”

“Every single word was God’s own truth,” he assured her.

“Really, sir?”

“I make no claims for the sentences mind, but the words were true; every preposition and article.”


End file.
